"Some really bad things happened to Otto — some really, really bad things. But he tells me that he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word," Trump said, referring to the North Korean dictator.

The president added that Kim told him that he "felt very badly about it."

Otto Warmbier is taken to a court in Pyongyang, North Korea, on March 16, 2016.Kyodo / Reuters file

“We got halfway up the steps, we heard this howling, involuntary, inhuman sound. We weren’t really certain what it was,” Fred Warmbier said. “Otto was on the stretcher … and was jerking violently making these inhuman sounds.”